Michelle Van Scoyk is the Lab Manager and a Research Scientist of a cancer research laboratory at the Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, Virginia Commonwealth University. With over 20 years of experience in lung cancer research, she has contributed to more than 20 publications in peer-reviewed journals across three academic institutions: University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Virginia Commonwealth University. Notable achievements in her career include conducting a brief experiment with the First Lady of the United States, Dr. Jill Biden, and writing a scientific blog for the Nature Portfolio Cancer Community, which was featured on Nature Portfolio's Instagram account link.

Michelle’s passion for science began early, with a track record of winning science fair competitions from the age of 8 and continuing with scientific poster awards throughout her career. She has been fortunate to have a mentor who has guided her from the start of her journey. From her early days making basic buffers in the lab to her current work on generating patient-derived lung tumor organoids for precision care medicine, Michelle has grown alongside the field of science. She continues to mentor high school, undergraduate, graduate, and medical students, as well as research fellows in lung cancer research. Her guiding principle is, “If we can’t cure cancer in this lifetime, someone down the line will continue to carry on the work from the clues we’ve provided them through our research.”